


a chance to be someone else

by days4daisy



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: Bondage, Drugged Sex, Extra Treat, Forced Crossdressing, Gunplay, M/M, Object Insertion, Rape/Non-con Elements, Roleplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:54:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24833413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/days4daisy/pseuds/days4daisy
Summary: Dorian taps the barrel of the gun against Ethan’s painted lips. “Now, my dear, open wide,” he says.
Relationships: Ethan Chandler/Dorian Gray
Comments: 8
Kudos: 27
Collections: Nonconathon 2020





	a chance to be someone else

**Author's Note:**

  * For [within_a_dream](https://archiveofourown.org/users/within_a_dream/gifts).



A sluggish haze turns Ethan's thoughts to cotton. His eyelids stick like glue, and he struggles against their gummy resistance.

He manages to turn his head, a sharp veer to one side which earns a chiding tsk from above him. “Now now, Mister Chandler. It will only be a minute more.”

That voice. Ethan knows it. He’s heard it rather recently in fact. Tonight perhaps, though the concept of day and night is like water through his fingers at the moment. Ethan's eyelids still refuse to cooperate. His limbs do not want to obey either. His toes refuse to wiggle or fingers to twitch.

Something cool rubs across his lips, soft and slick. Ethan tries to turn again, but his head does not cooperate as it did before. A dull ache spreads down his throat.

“Yes, my dear.” That voice again. “I see you.”

Ethan swore on the graves of all he once held dear that he would never see Mister Gray again. Their night together remains a blur of absinthe and torn clothing. It was a night of weakness, when responsibility gave way to baser instincts. Ethan never blamed Dorian. Vanessa, or Vanessa’s demon, said it best. Dorian was, and is, the irresistible one. A vice of a kind, and one cannot blame the vice for their own addiction.

The one night was to be the last, but Ethan saw him again. Dorian's dress was fine as ever when he found Ethan wallowing in ale. He earned fewer stares than he should have in the low-end tavern given his clear social advantage.

Ethan pushes against the coolness on his lips, and manages to crack his mouth open with a sticky gasp. He gurgles, Adam’s apple bobbing with force.

“Shhh, easy now.” Patient fingers stroke his brow. “You’ll come around soon. The formula is quite potent, I’m afraid.”

Formula…

It isn’t possible. Ethan turned down every sugar-laced offer Dorian made to buy him a drink. He had his own, Ethan pointed out. He wasn’t in the mood for Dorian’s fancy preferences. And finally, when gruff but polite rebuffs was not enough, Ethan glared at Dorian and told him off. Said the last thing he wanted was to spend another moment in Dorian’s company. Told Dorian to get out of his face before he did something they would both regret.

But Ethan did not leave the tavern that night, did he? He stumbled, groping for a door he couldn't see. Ethan barely made it to the street before hitting the ground.

He feels the dull sting of his skinned knees now. The tightness of cuts beginning to scab.

Ethan manages to pry one weighted eyelid open. A smear of color greets him, varying shades of black and brown. A fire must be lit. Ethan cannot make out the flames, but a corner of his sight is a blur of orange and gold.

Above him, dark colors give way to a wash of creme. The hazy figure leans in. Ethan wills himself to recoil, but his body refuses to cooperate. Anger blooms behind his paralysis, and fear with it. He wrenches harder against the malaise turning his body numb. This time, a finger twitches, but it’s all he manages. He lies silent for the tender hand that cups his cheek.

“Good evening,” he’s bid. A kiss follows the greeting. Dorian's breath tickles Ethan's upper lip. Ethan wills himself to bite, or at least force his head away. His body refuses both commands.

Dorian’s face becomes clearer when he eases back. His expression is soft, a touch of wetness to his thin smile. His hair slopes over his forehead. Even by the light of the fire, his eyes glint dark. “I hope you won’t be too cross with me,” Dorian says. “You took ill rather suddenly, Mister Chandler, and I knew the last thing one of your poise would want is to cause a scene. Privacy, it seemed, was the most prudent choice.”

Ethan would spit in his face if he could, or at least laugh in it. He wants to know what was done to him, why he can’t move. But the words refuse to coalesce on his tongue. He is dumb and immobile, only able to stare up at Dorian in bleary-eyed wonder.

Dorian smiles. “I couldn’t help but notice that the burden on you has grown since our last meeting. I’d hoped it wouldn’t, that our time together would have acted like a salve to your many wounds. It’s quite the weight you carry, this lie of a life you parade through each day.”

One ill-advised night together and Dorian thinks himself an expert on Ethan’s burdens. The discomfort Ethan has carried inside towards this man sprouts to newfound hatred.

Ethan still cannot make his body behave, but his eyes must betray something. Out of nowhere, Dorian laughs. “Yes, that face exactly! The hot blooded American in his rugged, dust-stained glory. You play the part to perfection.”

Lithe though Dorian is, he is long and tall, able to fit with ease against Ethan’s side. His lazy fingers dangle through Ethan’s hair. “I thought you deserved a reprieve from this mask you force yourself into.” Dorian draws a patient finger down Ethan’s nose and taps his lips.

When he pulls the finger back, the tip is red. Blood? It can’t be, the color is too bright, like paint or...rouge, yeah. A lady’s rouge on his lips.

Ethan has seen too many things on his travels abroad and back west. A man dressed in makeup is far from an oddity, let alone the sacrilege those of narrow minds may decry. It’s the situation that makes Ethan shudder. That Dorian has seen fit to paint Ethan’s face like the fairer sex while Ethan lay unaware.

Ethan presses his sluggish tongue against the roof of his mouth in frustration. He manages to wedge it open. “Why?” he croaks.

Dorian laughs off the question, his voice like tickling chimes. “Mister Chandler, we all deserve the chance to be someone else from time to time.” His fingers continue down Ethan’s jaw. Ethan swallows furiously, but it makes no difference. Dorian’s hand continues to his collar. His chest, naked. His ribs...tight. Too tight.

The constriction hits Ethan’s consciousness like a smack to the face. Something latches around his rib cage, grinding against bone. Ethan gasps for air, eyes wide with panic. He writhes on drowsy limbs but cannot free himself. His brain is still too fogged to figure out what binds him. Rope? No, the strands feel softer, and they lack the grainy friction of chains.

“Silk scarves,” Dorian answers for him. “From my own collection. I selected them for the occasion. Two black, two purple. A deep Bordeaux shade, actually. They were made for your skin. Like this.” He traces fingers down the covering over Ethan’s ribs.

With a grunt, Ethan manages to dip his chin to his chest. The source of his constricted breathing is a corset bound around his midsection, black with wine boning. A black cotton skirt drapes over his legs, silk ribbons hanging from it like tassels.

“A fetching ensemble, isn’t it? Understated but rather flattering. A compliment to your already striking features.”

Dorian has gone insane. Driven mad under the eyes of his beloved portraits. Or maybe it is Ethan who's lost his mind. How sweet it would be to wake up and realize this entire episode has been nothing but a dream. This nonsense has to be a lie caused by whatever tainted his drink. It cannot be real, because why in the world would Dorian…

“A saloon girl, I thought. Did they have those back along the winding trails of your Western Expedition?” Dorian asks, wide-eyed as a curious child. “I couldn’t change the narrative entirely, of course. Just a reworked role. A chance to be someone else, at least for a little while.”

Then, Dorian lifts a gun.

Ethan recognizes the pistol immediately as one of his own. Its long barrel is familiar, etched with metal scarring from heavy use. Ethan would know it anywhere. The weapon looks foreign in Dorian’s hand, but he is not clumsy with it or unsure. His manicured fingers take their time evaluating the weight of the hilt.

Casually, Dorian swings the barrel in Ethan’s direction. Ethan’s heart claws up his throat. Panicked, he screams inside for his body to move. His arms and legs manage to twist, but his full strength evades him. Sluggish and weak, Dorian’s silk scarves are more than enough to keep Ethan pinned to the bed.

“Easy now,” Dorian soothes. “I’ve given you the opportunity to play a new role, it’s only fitting that I should be afforded the same chance. What large hands you have, Mister Chandler. I felt them, of course, on our night together. But holding this? I feel I know you on a different level.”

Ethan puts as much energy as he can muster into the will to speak. He grows red in the face, breaths bursting out in rapid pants. Teeth grit, eyes tearing, he manages, “ _Put it down._ ”

“After our game,” Dorian assures him. “Do you like games? I used to enjoy them quite a bit, but I became bored over the years. When you play enough times, you know the rules too well. You learn how to subvert them, your amateur competition none the wiser. This is the first time I’ve felt the challenge of a proper game in some time. It’s quite exhilarating.”

Dorian taps the barrel of the gun against Ethan’s painted lips. “Now, my dear, open wide,” he says.

Ethan shudders beneath him. Indisposed as he is, too foggy to consider any other options, he opens his mouth.

The metal is cold between his lips and tastes like blood and smoke. Ethan opens wide enough that the barrel won’t crack his teeth. Sleek as the weapon is, it isn’t too heavy on his tongue. Fear makes his exhales burst shaking from his nose. He tries to hold himself still, tries to control the heavy patter of his heartbeat.

Ethan has been at gunpoint before. He’s faced massacres of an unfathomable scale. Seen innocents ripped apart both literally and figuratively. But there is something about his own lack of say in the outcome of this situation that chills him. Painted and dressed as another’s amusement, his mouth wrapped around the barrel of his own gun. Cold sweat trickles down the back of Ethan’s neck. _Stay still_ , he tells himself. Dorian is a man of many lives and little patience. He can grow tired, he’s admitted as much. Ethan can become yet another game that bores him.

“It’s quite sinful, you know. That mouth of yours.” Dorian angles eyes down at Ethan. “You’re a man who projects such hardness. But for all that bravado, it’s quite soft, your mouth. You’re getting paint on the metal, would you like to see?”

Ethan is quite incapable of answering, but Dorian shows him anyway. There is indeed a smear of red rouge down the barrel of Ethan’s gun. It makes the otherwise polished metal look dirty. Same shade it gets when it’s splattered with another man’s blood. Ethan shudders, but he won’t rise to the provocation. Closing his eyes, he turns, cheek pushed against the bed sheets. The cotton is cool and welcome. He wonders if Dorian painted his cheeks too, and his eyes. He must have, knowing him. An incomplete picture wouldn’t satisfy one of Dorian's aesthetics.

“You’ll thank me, you know,” Dorian says. Ethan bites the inside of his cheek. He won’t give the man the pleasure.

The wet barrel of the pistol scrapes down Ethan’s throat. It continues to his chest, lining his breastplate with a damp line. The corset too, fabric rustling under the gun’s influence. Ethan swallows, but he maintains his quiet. If he doesn’t react, Dorian will grow bored with him. Dorian always grows bored with things that don’t rise to his expectations. He wants a wild American performance from Ethan, and he isn’t going to get one.

Ethan’s resolve breaks in a startled hiss when Dorian hikes the skirt up to his waist. It’s a violent motion, and with it Ethan realizes he is completely nude underneath. The unimpeded air hits his bare skin like a slap. Goosebumps spring up on his thighs.

Ethan twists sluggishly. “Don’t,” he forces out.

“Ah yes, I imagine the saloon girl would be a bit demure to start, wouldn’t she?” Dorian sighs. “She has an image to maintain too, as do we all. But I can assure you, my dear, the last thing I would ever do is hurt you.”

A rustle touches Ethan’s ears, the slight brush of fabric. He goes stone stiff when Dorian moves between his thighs. Ethan tries to shut them, writhes to close his knees. Dorian, keen to his game, sets hands on Ethan’s legs. Though gentle, Ethan feels the force behind them. “There now. Deep breaths.”

The first touch of Dorian’s oil-slicked finger makes Ethan nauseous. The room swims before his eyes, and he shuts them tightly, bile hot in his throat.

Dorian merely taps him at first, like a mouse asking for passage. Ethan feels the mockery in the gesture. His face heats with fury, but his tongue is paralyzed by fear. A game, sure. A game’s one thing. But Dorian doesn’t actually intend to do this, does he?

Then, the finger pushes in.

The oil doesn’t matter, or the drugs meandering through Ethan’s veins. He’s tight with nerves, and the pressure hurts. A spike of pain shoots up Ethan’s back, and with it renewed panic.

Ethan begins to struggle in earnest. He can’t manage much in his condition, but he tries. Whatever God or Devil may be watching, Ethan fights for his life. He twists in his silk bonds and bridges off the bed. His skirt swishes angrily around his thighs as he kicks out his legs. Ethan tries to make good contact with Dorian. It doesn’t have to be flush, it just has to be enough. If he can unknot himself at the right time, Ethan doesn’t know if he has the coherence to run. But there’s no greater motivator, no better source of sobriety, than fear.

That same fear lumps in Ethan’s throat when Dorian points the pistol at him. He pulls back the lock with a simple flick of a thumb. Dorian looks down the barrel at him. His expression doesn’t show much at all. It’s like Ethan is some novel he’s gotten bored with halfway through. Low-lidded disapproval before tossing an unnecessary thing on the garbage heap. “Deep breaths, I said,” Dorian murmurs.

A drop of sweat weaves a slow line down Ethan’s face. Ethan feels it like an insect scaling his skin. He does his best to swallow back his panic. Holding Dorian’s eyes, Ethan takes a deep breath. In. Out.

Dorian’s eyes soften, and his thin lips curl upward. “There now.” He presses his finger all the way in. “Isn’t that better?”

Ethan’s waist aches with protest. Nausea churns in his gut, and fresh sweat turns his hair damp. Ethan forces himself to grit, “Much.”

“Of course it is.” Dorian lowers the pistol, but he does not retract his finger. Ethan feels the point of Dorian’s knuckle inside him. The same touch that lit his liquored desires aflame once fuels sickness now. The room fades in and out, and illness pushes like a weight behind his eyes.

Dorian’s motions are gentle. He fingers Ethan with the tender caution reserved for a lover. Ethan tries not to think about it. He only wants to breathe, in and out. Their rhythms fall in line, and Ethan blows out a shuddering breath when Dorian recedes. Sickness rolls in Ethan’s stomach. His heart pounds in his chest, and his thighs shiver around Dorian’s sides.

“Good girl,” Dorian praises softly. “You’re doing well.”

Ethan hates him more than he’s hated anything other than himself. Maybe Ethan deserves this with all the wrong he's done. This night is some kind of penance. God’s punishment, or whatever higher power Dorian aligns to. Whoever this night is for, Ethan wants it to be over.

He tries to pretend that the crawl of drug through his body is the sweet tickle of absinthe. It felt wrong then too, but Ethan wanted it, needed it, as Wagner swelled to a crescendo. Ethan forces his pride and affront into the little box where he stores so many other things. Memories. Shame. The truth of what he is.

Dorian’s second finger startles Ethan out of the reverie. The pain is immediate, but Ethan bites his cheek against his groan. He turns away. Must look pathetic, his painted cheek against Dorian’s pillow. Ethan forces deep breaths, each one shaking under the crush of the corset. If he lies still, it will be over soon. If he lets it happen, Dorian will let him be on his way.

“Now I warn you, this may hurt a bit.” Dorian has the gall to look apologetic. “It can’t be helped, I’m afraid. You’re brave, though, I know you are.”

Ethan frowns when Dorian’s fingers withdraw from inside him. The reprieve is blissful, tension melting from Ethan’s limbs.

It is replaced tenfold when the cold barrel of the pistol nudges between his thighs.

Fear throbs behind Ethan’s eyes. His heartbeat stabs through his throat, and only Dorian’s low-lidded stare keeps him still. Ethan’s breaths stagger out like shuddering sobs. He’s hyperventilating, frozen in place.

“Now now, my dear. Don’t cry,” Dorian soothes with a small, sincere smile. “Calm yourself. Nice deep breaths.”

Deep breaths don’t help. The pain is immediate and visceral. The pistol’s cold barrel gives way to hot, blinding agony. It sings up Ethan's spine and shocks fresh tears to his eyes. Ethan rolls them up towards the ceiling.

He’s not only experienced bigger, he’s enjoyed it too. But then, his body was accommodating, and his partner’s body was warm and adaptable. The steel of his gun is a straight, unforgiving line. There is no curve as it presses in, no adjustment for the size and give of Ethan’s body. Tears slip down Ethan’s cheeks, soaking Dorian's sheets with his misery.

Dorian doesn’t stop until the trigger is wedged against his rim. Ethan gasps for air, vision blurred with tears.

“What a sight,” Dorian marvels quietly. “One of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen much, darling. So much more than you could ever know.”

Ethan lacks the awareness or fight to fire back at him. To guess at the meaning behind Dorian’s cryptic words. To spit curses about the type of man who finds beauty in another living thing’s pain.

But there is beauty in pain, isn’t there? Life seems defined by moments of tragedy, if not Ethan’s than those of others. Ethan has caused many of these moments. Accidents at times, or uncontrollable impulses.

Pain blossoms through Ethan’s waist like a vibrant spring. It swells through his belly and pushes against his constricted ribs. Ethan’s lungs seem to beat against the walls of his chest. He bites his painted lip hard enough to draw blood.

The world is a haze of agony too overwhelming to be pierced. Ethan takes minutes to register Dorian playing with his cock. He fists it with a delicate hand, skin soft and well-groomed. Dorian touches himself too, kneeling in full view, sex released over his bent knees. His face flushes in enjoyment, an approving sparkle to his eyes.

Were Ethan capable of coherent thought, he would wonder at his own ability to arouse in this moment. But he is not, and his erection in Dorian’s hand remains a mystery.

Ethan recognizes the moment when Dorian comes. His mouth forms an open smile, a crescent of gaping space. Ethan can’t hear the sigh breathed from them, the pounding in his ears is too loud. Dorian tips his head back, the expanse of his neck emphasized by his unbuttoned blouse. His come stains Ethan’s skirt of course, not his own immaculate trousers.

Ethan orgasms as well at some point. He knows only from the added stains on his skirt, and the slack of his cock in Dorian’s hand. The pressure between his thighs is too thick to feel through. Even Ethan's own release cannot penetrate the agony separating him from coherent thought.

The feeling breaks on sharp, quick pain - the gun jarred free of Ethan’s body. With it, the crescendo dies, leaving behind a throbbing ache. Ethan feels opened in a way he’s never been before.

A line of blood colors his chin from his split lip and joins the salty smear of tears and makeup on the bedspread. One little droplet of blood. Cursed beyond anyone’s wildest dreams.

Ethan is out of his head, drunk with anguish. But instinct forces him to hiss, “No,” when Dorian leans in to kiss him. His blood is exposed, and with it the monster inside. Which is worse - the thing Ethan is, or the thing Dorian could become with this same affliction?

Dorian's face is quiet as a porcelain doll. “I’ve seen your kind, my dear, and I’ve tasted my fill.”

He follows with a kiss, hungry in its force. Ethan groans under him, his mouth stings at the roughness. But he does not try to fight, his mouth slack for Dorian’s plunder.

When Dorian pulls back, his lips bear the color of blood and paint. “Beautiful,” he purrs. “Worthy of an artist’s touch. Later perhaps. For now, lie still.”

Drugged and wrung with pain, Ethan has no choice but to comply. Dorian goes somewhere, and the light of the fire begins to die. Soreness covers Ethan like a blanket. He floats in and out of awareness, a gnawing ache between his thighs.

His eyes are closed when the flash of the camera explodes over him. Ethan hopes he looks dead in Dorian’s photographs. Art resembling life.


End file.
